Early lessons

Janice Williams-Myers is a legacy when it comes to advocating for labor rights. Her inspiration came at a young age, when she saw her father struggle for respect as a waiter for the Union Pacific Railroad.

"The waiters were abused by the elite folks who took trains across the country," recalled Williams-Myers. "He was called po'boy and worse."

The oldest of five children growing up in Denver, Williams-Myers said those childhood memories of her father left a lasting impression on her. "It played a major part," she said of her father's influence on her journey to become a civil and labor rights activist.

Though her father ultimately left his job at the railroad, the experience ingrained in her a deep-seated sense of a need for justice, with labor rights going hand in hand with civil rights, according to Williams-Myers.

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Today, Williams-Myers is a political organizer with Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, 1199. With 2.1 million members in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, the organization is focused on uniting workers in health care, public services and property services. Williams-Myers has dedicated herself to the union's political program.

For more than 40 years, she has spent her life dedicated to promoting civil and labor rights. As a teenager growing up in the 1960s, Williams-Myers said reading "Light the Dark Streets" by C. Kilmer Myers, inspired her to action. The story of a church group working with youth gangs in New York City motivated her to volunteer with the author during a summer program on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she worked in outreach with the Michigan Trinity Parish to help keep young people out of trouble.

"A lot of people were using drugs then, mainly heroin," Williams-Myers said. "The church ran a well- structured summer program designed to keep them away from drugs."

The summer proved fruitful, both personally and professionally. It began Williams-Myers, then age 18, on a career path providing much-needed health care to marginalized groups in society. It was also the summer she met her future husband, Albert Williams-Myers.

Together, they would travel to Malawi, where she worked to combat tuberculosis as a member of the Peace Corps. The couple also lived in St. Thomas, where Williams-Myers worked as a math teacher, and later to Zambia, where she worked as an English instructor.

The challenges along the way were numerous. "Working in remote areas, it was hard to talk to people about tuberculosis," Williams-Myers said. People believed, 'If you can't see something, it doesn't exist.'"

At the time, she added, she also had to be cautious over her own health. "Immunizations for tuberculosis didn't exist," she explained. Like many of her fellow volunteers in the Peace Corps, the experience further inspired Williams-Myers to continue to work in public health.

After giving birth to her first of two daughters, Maluwa, in Malawi, Williams-Myers "hopped around the continent," she said. On the heels of the exploration of Africa, she and her husband returned to the United States. Albert was a student at the University of California at Los Angeles. Williams-Myers witnessed firsthand the effects of the unrest in the nation due to events like the Vietnam War and the fatal shootings of four students at Kent State in Ohio as an employee of the psychiatric division of student health services at the university.

"There was a lot of upheaval at that time," recalled Williams-Myers, though she described the environment on the UCLA campus as a "vibrant" spot.

After a stint at Carlton College in Minnesota -- "I so enjoyed it I cried the whole way to New York" -- Williams-Myers and her husband settled in New Paltz to raise their two daughters. (Her husband is currently a professor of African and African-American studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz.)

Williams-Myers began working as a substance abuse counselor at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, commuting the 2 1/2 hours to Manhattan for more than 15 years. "It was the only detox unit in New York state that worked with pregnant woman," Williams-Myers said.

While weaning a patient off heroin is complicated enough, pregnancy necessitates a longer period of withdrawal, usually around 40 days, she said.

The rewards of the profession, according to Williams-Myers, were great. Standing on the subway platform waiting for a train one afternoon, she recognized a former patient along with her healthy 5-year-old daughter. "This is my little girl," the proud patient told Williams-Myers.

While submitting to the rigors of her demanding profession, as well as those of being a wife and mother, Williams-Myers undertook a new responsibility as the local delegate for St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital. "We were constantly working with management with issues regarding our job," she said. Her belief that "we are only as healthy as the least healthy person in our society" underscored her work with the group.

"I firmly believe that health care is a right and not a privilege," she said.

Soon, Williams-Myers began to shift her focus onto the political arena. "My strength comes in getting people to contribute their fair share towards the total work we do as a union," she said.

While working on the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004, she covered ground in Des Moines, Iowa. "I need to work in the 'hood," she told the organizers of the campaign.

The organizers warned Williams-Myers about neighborhood murders, but that did little to deter her. "I got so may people registered to vote," she said, "because if you don't touch those people, you don't touch anyone."

After serving as a full-time "member political organizer" for the SEIU 1999 during the campaign, she was brought on as a permanent political organizer.

She continued her work as a political organizer in Cleveland, Ohio, during Barack Obama's successful campaign. "I was persuading people that you should go out and vote for this man," said Williams-Myers of her role.

The most moving experience, however, came during an exchange with a John McCain supporter. The individual had one son serving in Iraq, one on his way over and a third child in boot camp.

"I told him I would have turned around if I knew that," Williams-Myers said. The surprising response? "He embraced me."

To Williams-Myers, the Obama victory is a symbol of how far America had progressed. "My mother took us outside to see Sputnik (a Russian satellite)," she said. "I even remember our first television set," she added.

"The things I have seen in my lifetime."

Last year, the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation honored Williams-Myers with the Mother Jones Award, which is named for famous community activist Mary Harris "Mother" Jones. Still, she isn't slowing down.

Active as ever in the political scene, Williams-Myers has helped the SEIU 1199 to interview more than 400 politicians in the last three months from Ulster, Dutchess Sullivan and Orange counties. All of them were seeking the endorsement of the powerful union. She is focused on getting politicians in office who will make health care reform a priority.

"So much has changed, and a lot for the better, but we still have so much to do," she said.

"I love what I do, and I'm very passionate," said Williams-Myers, reflecting on what Labor Day means to her in 2009. "I wish I had another 100 years."